RIP s22 notices SI

[Quentin Campbell]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Owen Lewis [mailto:oml@sysrx.uk.com]=20
> Sent: 11 June 2002 14:06
> To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: RE: RIP s22 notices SI
>=20
>=20
> I think this issue is of sufficient importance that all of us=20
> should contact our MP with a 'wake up call' to the effects of=20
> the proposed detail to be set before parliament. Ian Brown=20
> has kindly suggested that the following will provide a=20
> convenient way to do this. See 'fax your MP at=20
> http://www.stand.org.uk/weblog/archive/2002/06/10/000193.php=20
> . I hope that we all will make use of this service or make=20
> similar arrangements.
>=20

How might MPs have reacted in the original debates on RIPA if S25
included all the bodies listed in the new order?

I suspect that the original drafting of S22 & S25, and the omission of
these additional public bodies, was quite deliberate and cynically
designed to mislead MPs.

It is interesting that both sections provide for the Secretary of State
to add public authorities to the schedule by an order laid before
Parliament. This might be expected (and acceptable) if it was there
simply to deal with changing circumstances during the life time of the
Act.

But this new order is _not_ about dealing with changed circumstances. It
simply and dishonestly adds those public authorities that the wording of
S22(2) implies should have been there in the first place but which the
Government were too frightended to include in the original draft of the
Bill. They appear to have used this underhand method now to add what
they always intended the Act should contain.=20

If I am right on this then it is contemptible and MPs should challenge
the Government about their actions in not being honest with the Commons
when they presented the original RIP Bill.

Quentin
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"Any opinion expressed above is mine. The University can get its own."=20